Bill Ayers On Hardball: Calls Accusations "Profoundly Dishonest" (VIDEO)

Bill Ayers On Hardball: Calls Accusations "Profoundly Dishonest" (VIDEO)

www.huffingtonpost.com

"I don't tend to watch television news...I have three grown sons who kind of filter those things and they sent it to me."

That's Bill Ayers, making an appearance this evening on Hardball, with Chris Matthews. Once of the Weather Underground, Ayers was more recently a central figure in the vast booga-foo nightmare that the GOP tried to paralyze the nation with to prevent the election of Barack Obama, because they didn't have any ideas or policies they wanted to talk about instead. I guess. I mean, such things could have been useful to a presidential campaign or something! Anyway, instead, we had loud braying about how Obama and Ayers might have met at some point, and Obama's failure to strike Ayers down in cold blood for his crimes was proof that they were in cahoots with one another. Or, in the parlance of Alaska Secessionists, "pallin' around."

Asked about his reaction to Palin's "palling around with terrorists remark, Ayers said: "I thought it was outrageous and profoundly dishonest, and I chose not to react to it at the time."

(visit the link for the full news article)

WATCH THE VIDEO AT THE SOURCE

Ayers added, "I was on a board with President-Elect Obama, we did live in the same neighborhood, but the dishonesty of the narrative is that if you can place two people in the same room or prove that they took a bus downtown together, that they're somehow responsible for one anothers politics, policies, outlook, and behavior, and that seems to me to be patently absurd."

I hate to say it because I know I’m going to be flamed and hear a lot of jabber about posting from a huffingtonpost article, but a lot of what Mr. Ayers stated MADE SENSE.

www.huffingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Myabe what he made sense philisophically...but his actions CANNOT be excused, PERIOD. He claims he never meant to hurt anyone but the weapons he made were anti-personnell in manufacturing. Liberal Democrats must still have some sort of common sense.

reply to post by djvexd

but his actions CANNOT be excused

I knew this statement would definitely end up in this thread.

Excused? No. Understood, perhaps. Were they okay? No. Can someone change? Yes. Do I agree with those actions? No. But do I think he's any worse of a person than say President Bush? No. If we want to talk about murder and crimes against someone's own country I think Bush is higher up on the list of the guilty.

[edit on 11-12-2008 by rapinbatsisaltherage]

reply to post by djvexd

Liberal Democrats must still have some sort of common sense

By the way, just so we're clear, I'm a registered Independent and I have lots of common sense. I just don't see the world in black and white, that means being open minded about everybody, including people like Ayers.

The US government has taken many times more lives than this organization ever did, deliberately or not, and they did/do/will continue to do so every year that they are allowed to stand. In my view, when someone has the balls to stand up against the machine, it's just a good thing. When a small faction like WU resorted to such strong measures, it was indicative of the level of both their frustration and their powerlessness. But this is the hallmark of the freedom fighter (aka terrorists). The more you stand back from them and condemn "their actions", the more you give power to the government they're fighting against. YOU become the problem. Think about where that leads you.

Maybe it would be well-advised to consider taking part in civic activities in order to promote the finer qualities of society. Maybe if more people would give of their time and energy on a regular basis, there would be less compulsion on the part of the young and idealistic to resort to these measures.

The real shame here would be to think that Mr Ayers was part of that machine nowadays, that he had lost his former fire, that he had been assimilated.

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
Maybe it would be well-advised to consider taking part in civic activities in order to promote the finer qualities of society. Maybe if more people would give of their time and energy on a regular basis, there would be less compulsion on the part of the young and idealistic to resort to these measures.

Good post CosmicEgg. I agree with a lot of your points, especially the one above.

reply to post by CosmicEgg


I hate to tell you but, Ayers is part of the machine now. Why do you think is suddenly granting interviews after the election? Oh yeah, he is also trying to sell his rehash of a book from 2001. Ayers likes money, he comes from money, he denounced his families wealth when it was cool, and now he is back to his money living the life in a tone section of Chicago.

Bottom line. Ayers is an egomaniacal scumbag who should be in jail. He got off on a technicality. He is no better than OJ Simpson.

The Huffington article didn't mention the fact that Matthews was capitol police officer at the time of the WU capitol bombings.

Has he ever expressed remorse?

How does he feel about is girlfriend at the time dying in the WU makeshift bomb factory?

I guess it was all worth it. He now has a cushy lecture job, expensive house and he has republished his tired old book to further pad his retirement fund. He must be a cool dude. Way to stick it to the man Ayers.

People still think Charles Manson is a cool dude also.

I did a thread on Ayers a while back defending him and I got flamed left right and center. The fact is people like Ayers see the big picture. He sees the government wholesale slaughter of innocent people in the name of world conquest and not American defense. The only difference is he had the balls to actually do something about it which is more than I can say for everyone here on ATS including myself. The fact is he killed no innocent civilians just two of his friends killed themselves trying to make a bomb. People like Ayers will be painted as a terrorist even though I submit to you that the real terrorists are the ones in Washington who allowed millions of civilians to die during the Vietnam war. Oh wait they are Asian lives so they dont count.

reply to post by jibeho


Do you even know what that "technicality" is?

COINTELPRO, look it up.

I know this guy I used to have coffee with a few years ago. He converted to Islam about a year ago, and has since been spouting lots of anti-American dribble. He's still an acquaintance, though I don't seek him out...We live in two different worlds now that for the time being cannot be reconciled.

I guess that makes me an Islamic fundamentalist with anti-American views.

Originally posted by davion
reply to post by jibeho

 

Do you even know what that "technicality" is?

COINTELPRO, look it up.

Yes, I am fully aware of the program. My father in -law was an FBI agent (not involved in the program) late 60's to mid 70's. It was a different era when Hoover gave birth to the program during the height of the Cold War. The nation was Commie Crazy and they took the program way to far throughout the sixties when they broke away from the original goal of the program. Don't fault them for trying to take out the KKK though.

To bad they broke laws in the process. They missed the chance to take the scumbag WU members to jail. They are extremely lucky that no one died in their attacks. They had no control over the bombs and the people in those buildings. Pure Luck. They didn't care. Now Ayers is a self proclaimed hero amongst college students who didn't exist at the time of the 60's fervor. Move on Ayers. The world is a different place and you are a wealthy hypocrite.

Just a technicality. He still committed the crimes. That fact will never change.

[edit on 12-12-2008 by jibeho]

Ayers wife:

Ms. Dohrn told an S.D.S. audience: ''Dig it! Manson killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they shoved a fork into a victim's stomach.''
In Chicago recently, Ms. Dohrn said of her remarks: ''It was a joke. We were mocking violence in America. Even in my most inflamed moment I never supported a racist mass murderer.''
In the mid-1970's the Weathermen began quarreling. One faction, including Ms. Boudin, wanted to join the Black Liberation Army.

query.nytimes.com...

I wonder what specifically bothered Ms. Dorn about the Manson Family? She apparently supported potential mass murders (bombers) and racists (Black Liberation Army) so I wish she had clarified her position on the Manson Family in detail if she in fact meant the comment as a “joke”.

Harvey Klehr, the Andrew W. Mellon professor of politics and history at Emory University in Atlanta, "The only reason they were not guilty of mass murder is mere incompetence. I don't know what sort of defense that is.”

Though in all fairness they did managed to blow a few of themselves up while trying to build bombs. What a bunch of idiots.

To think some on here “admire or defend” them is laughable.

reply to post by Sonya610


What a classy lady!!

They can rationalize anything nowadays by saying it was all "cool" at the time.

reply to post by jibeho



Oh, because my family is on the other side of the coin. One of my family members was almost assassinated because they wanted to pin his death on a black civil rights group they infiltrated, mainly because he was the chief of police in the area.

But that's neither here nor there.

[edit on 12-12-2008 by davion]

LOL...after a bit more research...

After they managed to blow up three of their own members while trying to build a nail bomb, THEN they decided maybe human casualities, kidnappings and assasinations were a bit to rough for their tastes. They apparently didn't think violence was a problem, it was a cool idea until they saw their friends get blown into little pieces. THEN it became real!!!

I say again....COMPLETE IDIOTS!

After the Greenwich Village incident (nail bomb incident) the group decided to reevaluate their strategy, particularly in regard to their initial belief in the acceptability of human casualties, rejecting such tactics as kidnapping and assassinations.

We were very careful from the moment of the townhouse on to be sure we weren't going to hurt anybody, and we never did hurt anybody. Whenever we put a bomb in a public space, we had figured out all kinds of ways to put checks and balances on the thing and also to get people away from it, and we were remarkably successful. -- Bill Ayers

reply to post by Sonya610


Ayers makes it sound like they were kids playing with firecrackers. Stand back while I light this thing. Cool?

Absolutely clueless.

What bothers me is that no one talks about all those kids that took these idiots word for gospel and got themselves into things they had no idea how to get out of. There was COINTELPRO on both sides of the law. Those that visited the campuses and used fear and misinformation to whip up the college campuses. I lived through that period. I took part in some of the madness. I still have the scars from CHicago in '68, both actual and internal! WU, The panthers, SDS, all the rest had agendas that still today rip this country apart. How many sitting here thinking these folks where autonomous know that there was outside Soviet and Chinese operatives in these groups giving them intel and planning? Not many of you, but its true. It was not just an anti-war anti US government movement. It was an inside attack on our lives and those of our children by outside influences!
Zindo

reply to post by Sonya610

Ayers wife:

I'm sort of missing where Bill Ayers has anything to do with that statement? Even if he did, why the hell do we throw un-politically correct people to the wolves? Yes we can judge people for their actions, I have no problem with that, but are you trying to paint that woman as a "bad guy" for a nonpolitically correct statement?

Good and bad and stupid exist in people, as does desperation. I think all of those things definitely existed in Ayers' circle, don't want to demonize or sanctify the man. I want to be honest about humanity as a whole, Ayers is certainly not the worst of us, and I made this post because a lot of what he said on Hardball made sense and I agreed with it. Nothing more, nothing less, but of course these kinds of threads always turn into something else. Soon as we string President Bush up for war crimes, then I’ll start even thinking about questioning Ayers getting off on a “technicality”. Seriously people the establishment does so all the damn time. Haven’t seen people bitching enough about Nixon or Bush the way they do about Ayers.

You wheren't old enough to see what Ayers and his friends did to this country and its basic law abiding populace. You didn't participate in the many good and productive protests. All you can do is read the history and statements of those that tend to rewrite the real history of the anti-war disidence. If you'd lived it and breathed it you might think very differantly of Ayers and his neo-socialist buddies and what they did to this country. They still have their agenda and work for that socialist agenda. They have their candidate in office and will weild their controll over him to your downfall. It will be years till you realise what you have believed is your own falicy. When you do you will ask yourself 'What in hell was I thinking'! But by then it will be too late!

Zindo